 "FirstUp: Farmers’ march resumes, Greek PM in India... today's big stories")
It’s Wednesday.
And there’s a big day of news ahead.
The Delhi Chalo march is set to resume today after farmers’ groups rejected the government’s proposal on Monday.
Greek’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will begin his two-day visit to India where he will be the keynote speaker at the 9th Raisina Dialogue.
PhonePe, the digital payment platform backed by US behemoth Walmart, will launch its app store for users.
India’s women footballers will compete in the Turkish Women’s Cup 2024 starting today in Alanya.
Let’s take a look at today’s big-ticket items:
Farmers’ groups resume march
On Monday, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha rejected the Centre’s offer to buy pulses, maize, and cotton at MSP for five years.
According to Financial Express, the group said the proposal was ’not in the farmers’ interest.'
The SKM rejected the government proposal, saying it seeks to “divert and dilute” the farmers’ demand for MSP and they will accept nothing less than the ‘C-2 plus 50 per cent’ formula for MSP as recommended in the Swaminathan Commission report.
Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said cultivators will hold a discussion on the Centre’s proposal but they will not budge from their demand for a law guaranteeing MSP.
Impact Shorts
View All“We appeal to the government to either resolve our issues or remove barricades and allow us to proceed to Delhi to protest peacefully,” the newspaper quoted Pandher as saying.
Farmers are also demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations including pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases and “justice” for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and compensation to the families of farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21.
The Delhi Police on Tuesday directed security personnel deployed at the city’s Tikri, Singhu and Ghazipur border points to stay alert and conducted mock drills in anticipation of the march resuming.
Greek PM in India
Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will be the chief guest and keynote speaker at the Raisina Dialogue – India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-strategy.
Mitsotakis’ two-day visit is aimed at strengthening India and Greece’s relationship – which was elevated to a ‘strategic partnership’ during Modi’s visit to Greece in August 2023.
No Greek head of state has visited India for 15 years.
The last such visit occurred when then Greek prime minister Karamanlis made the trip in 2008.
Mitsotakis, who is being accompanied by senior officials and a high powered business delegation, will also visit Mumbai before returning to Athens.
The ninth edition of the dialogue, which will continue till 23 February, will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today.
It is being organised by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in collaboration with Observer Research Foundation (ORF).
Kick-off for India’s women footballers
India’s women footballers are set to compete in the Turkish Women’s Cup 2024 in Alanya from today.
India’s will play Estonia today , Hong Kong on Saturday and Kosovo on Tuesday.
The four team tournament will take place in a round-robin format and will come to a close on 27 February.
India previously competed in the tournament in 2019 and 2021.
Officials expressed hope prior to the team leaving on Monday.
AIFF acting secretary general M Satyanarayan said, “Our Senior Women’s National Team are going to play for the first time after the Olympic Qualifiers, which makes the Turkish Women’s Cup an important tournament for us. The players have had a week-long preparation (camp in Bengaluru) before flying off to Turkey.”
PhonePe launches Indus Appstore
PhonePe will launch its app store today in Delhi.
According to The Times of India, the aim of the Indus Appstore is to give Google and Apple a run for their money.
The Indus Appstore is the first-ever ‘Made-in-India’ Android-based app store.
It focuses on offering Indians a localised platform that allows them to discover and access apps in 12 regional languages, in addition to English.
The app will be available in 12 Indian languages and English, ensuring users can explore, discover and download apps in their preferred language.
Government officials, startup founders and top executives are expected to attend the launch, as per The Times of India.
This follows the successful launch of the developer platform to major app developers in September 2023.
On this day…
On this day in 1975, ex-United States attorney-general John Mitchell and former White House aides HR Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to prison in the Watergate scandal.
It was a huge fall from grace for all three men particularly Mitchell, a former political adviser to President Richard Nixon and manager of his successful campaign to be president.
The development came a little over six months after Nixon in an address to the American people from the Oval Office announced his resignation over the scandal – thereby squashing any hopes of a pardon from their patron.
In the meantime, Ford had issued a full pardon to Nixon for any offenses he “has committed or may have committed" – which remains the subject of debate to this day.
With inputs from agencies
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